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Writer's pictureGeorge Longley

Ovidian Delights I

In the eighth book of his great mock-epic poem the Metamorphoses, several renowned heroes of myth and heroine Atalanta gather to ensnare the wild Calydonian boar. Atalanta wins (nice bit of girl power), whilst the heroes are somewhat, well, less than heroic.


Funniest of all is, Nestor, the great wise elder of the Iliad and hero of the first invasion of Troy. He acquits himself thus:


Forsitan et Pylius citra Troiana perisset tempora: sed sumpto posita conamine ab hasta arboris insiluit, quae stabat proxima, ramis despexitque, loco tutus, quem fugerat hostem.


"And Nestor might have might have perished then before the time he fought at Troy, but from his spear with some effort he vaulted into a tree which stood nearby and watched safely from the branches on the enemy he had escaped."

(So, he pole-vaults into a tree and watches, so heroic)

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